Sarita Laroche
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The peoples of the Star Alliance, are together under the rule of one woman – the Empress Sy; the immortal goddess who gave her name to the planet she rules with a golden fist from. She is merciful, staunch and resolute; she imparts her justice almost dispassionately, but cares so much for her subjects. She is the Queen Auger, ensuring her wards in the Temple are cared for and taught to always seek out the brightest future with their prophecies. She is eternal, and she is the Light. Except, she’s not. She’s a 26 year old woman named Ceara who has been the embodiment of Sy for ten years. She is not as omnipotent as her subjects would believe; with all of her knowledge being fed to her through her technical implants by the governing IQ – the Intelligence Quorum – who use Ceara’s body as a proxy for their golden queen. But when she inadvertently stains her fingers blue through a fruit from a distant solar system, she sets into motion a prophecy which has been hidden from her, Sy and the IQ. In fact, she’s somehow started the rebellion.
For what is, technically, a sci-fi novel, The Never-Ending Empress felt more like fantasy novel. The tech wasn’t mind-blowingly complicated, with actually less reference to it than one may think. It was more of the fact that this woman needed to find herself far from home and not know who to trust that made it feel more like a fantasy. That she was whisked away from her golden prison, simply because of a prophecy. And, what else is high or epic fantasy than a novel set on a different world? Just because there were planets, doesn’t mean there were not fantastical elements that made reading this book feel magical.
There are parts of The Never-Ending Empress which are difficult to read – the subject of child abuse is skirted around with Ceara’s recollection of when she was being groomed to step into the Sy persona. The complicit nature of the society she rules when a child is forcibly taken from her parents purely because she’s an Auger (a prophet). Even Ceara’s scant recollections about her parents, and that even thinking about them was literally beaten from her. But, these themes – as difficult as they are to read about – are handled with delicacy and empathy. And it was the fact that Laroche broached these subjects in such a way that made it stand out.
S. A.
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